Polonnaruwa is usually toured as a list of ruins; this ride treats it as a gallery. Your specialist guide focuses on what the stone carvers did and why. At the Gal Vihara, a 14-metre reclining Buddha rests on a stone pillow carved so finely it seems to sink beneath his head, while a 7-metre standing figure divides scholars to this day – a grieving Ananda, or the Buddha himself? At the Vatadage, the finest moonstone of the Polonnaruwa period carries a quiet political message: after Chola rule, the bull disappeared from its carved bands, since stepping on an animal sacred to Hindus had become unthinkable. And then the Gal Pota, a stone book nearly nine metres long and around 25 tonnes, hauled from Mihintale roughly 100 kilometres away to carry King Nissanka Malla’s own praises.